


you are not in control here

by emmelinecarrow



Series: who we are vol. 2 (jurassic character studies) [1]
Category: Jurassic World Trilogy (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 19:41:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15031847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmelinecarrow/pseuds/emmelinecarrow
Summary: Being the capable woman that she was, Claire was appointed as Park Operations Manager a mere five years after working there. She knew what people were saying behind her back, that she beguiled Simon Masrani (seriously?) to get to where she was. And yet, even those people could not prove that she was inept.To the relief of everyone at Jurassic World, she never took a sick day. Even if she was down with a bout of flu, Claire still showed up diligently. They might resent it, but they knew that should she choose to take a day off, the park could quite literally collapse under chaos.a Claire Dearing character study





	you are not in control here

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first non-marvel fic, so please feel free to drop a comment!
> 
> i was meant to post this a week ago, but i thought i would wait until fallen kingdom came out in USA, so spoilers ahead and enjoy!
> 
> not evolution of claire compliant

Claire Dearing, _former_ park operations manager of Jurassic World. She was not always like that.

Since childhood, Claire was a more of a studious student than a playful friend. She almost always chose to do homework than to go to the playground. That was not to say she did not have a mischievous streak in her. No, she was just more selective about who she showed it to.

She had a close and intimate relationship with her sister. Karen was five years older than she was, but that did nothing to worsen their relationship. If anything, it made them closer. Claire grew up with a protective sister that shielded her from the horrers of adolescence. But that also meant she grew up with first hand knowledge of what a broken heart can do to people.

The day she turned ten, Claire woke up to Karen balling her eyes out. Some guy- Jake, or Jack, she could not remember- had dumped her the night before. Ten year old her panicked and brought a bunch of chocolates from the kitchen to the room she shared with Karen, hair still a mess.

(They would laugh about this in ten years, but at that moment, Claire never felt further from her sister.)

When she turned fifteen, she was buried in the endless stacks of homework. In the equation of her life, dating held no place. She had a few crushes peppered here and there, but nothing substantial. Obviously, this got her where she wanted: Wharton.

Her first year in their business program earned her an internship with Masrani Global Corporations at Jurassic World. The first dinosaur she saw was an Apatosaurus. Claire could have sworn she witnessed a living, breathing miracle.

Four years after her admission, she graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Economics. She got a job as Senior Assets Manager at Jurassic World immediately.

Claire spent the next seven years climbing up the ladder at Masrani Global. She was competent, but she needed to make herself indispensable. She needed to prove she was not expendable. If she wanted to go up, she had to make herself vital to the operations of the park.

Being the capable woman that she was, Claire was appointed as Park Operations Manager a mere five years after working there. She knew what people were saying behind her back, that she beguiled Simon Masrani (seriously?) to get to where she was. And yet, even those people could not prove that she was inept.

To the relief of everyone at Jurassic World, she never took a sick day. Even if she was down with a bout of flu, Claire still showed up diligently. They might resent it, but they knew that should she choose to take a day off, the park could quite literally collapse under chaos.

Zara Young was hand picked by Claire to be her personal assistant. The young Irish had caught her attention when she was interviewing a series of applicants for openings in the park. Claire saw something in Zara that reminded her of herself. She had refused Simon's suggestions of having a personal assistant, insistent that she could handle everything on her own. Zara made her change her mind.

They developed a strong and personal friendship through the years. Zara would make sure that the older woman ate regularly, and Claire would provide her with all sorts of advice. (She was the one who encouraged Zara to take her relationship with Alec to the next step.)

Claire herself had went on a couple of dates. When one was stuck on an island with only so many other people, there was really nothing else to do on a Sunday night where work was the least.

There was Jason from human resource (his voice nearly caused her to fall asleep in the restaurant); Thomas from finance (he spent the whole date trying to convince Claire to agree to his proposed changes to the park's budget); Ryan from research and development (she heard about nothing but the DNA of dinosaurs); Vincent from marketing (the night ended with him leaving her at the restaurant because his mother called).

She had an endless list of failed first dates, and then there was Owen Grady.

If Claire was being honest with herself, she would admit that she was enamored with the Velociraptor trainer the moment she saw him. She spent a month debating asking him out but she did not because a: she did not need a distraction in her already hectic life, and b: she could not find the courage.

So, when _he_ did the asking, she panicked and said yes a little too quickly. The date was not until a week later, but Claire went home that night to start perfecting her outfit. The more she thought about it, the more flustered she felt.

She had the brilliant idea of drawing up an itinerary at two am on a Wednesday.

Claire spent a good two hours in front of the mirror when the day finally came. But all the effort were for nought when she saw him outside her bungalow. He was dressed in _board shorts_. She took no time to let him know about her displeasure. To make things worse, he brought a to a tequila bar, of all places.

Suffice to say, the date did not go well.

Claire tried to not let it get to her when she approached him at his cabin. (Of course, he _had_ to bring up the itinerary.) She tried to keep things professional but it was difficult because a: he certainly was anything but professional, and b: when did he become so hot?

Two hours later and she could no longer focus the latter. The monstrosity they had created turned out exactly the way they did not want it to be. Claire thought things could not get worse.

Only it did, when Zara called. She did not even hesitate to approach Owen for help. She cringed inwardly when he pointed out she did not even know Zach's and Gray's ages. The truth was she simply did not have the time to have all those family bonding with them. But she _had_ dumped them on Zara the moment are could. It was a miracle they did not think Aunt Claire was a figment of their imagination.

Some part of her felt that the whole _incident_ was but a figment of her imagination. Why else would she unbuckle her belt, tie her shirt at her midriff, roll up her sleeves and put her hands on her hips to tell Owen that she was ready?

She would have laughed, if it was not for the dire situation that they were in, when Owen all but mocked her for her _shoes_. ("You'll last two minutes in there. Less in those ridiculous shoes.") What else was she supposed to do? Swing by her bungolow for flats when her Zach and Gray were potentially turned into dinosaur feed? Or was she expected to walk barefeet through the glass scattered jungle?

She had a feeling creating a hybrid was a bad idea, and she said as much to Simon. The investors, however, did not seem to care. The only thing they cares about was that lesser people were willing to pay to see living, breathing miracles. ("They're dinosaurs. Wow enough.")

The search for her nephews was making her restless, to say the least. And the immense number of dinosaurs was not helping. Heck, she did not even have time to grieve.

Zara _died_ because Claire got her to take care of Zach and Gray. If she had not done that, Zara would still be alive, coordinating efforts from the control station. The young woman would still get to attend her own wedding. She was lying in the bottom of the stomach of an _asset_ because of _her_.

And she did not even had the time to grieve.

The kiss was unexpected, to say the least. She had killed the Dimorphodon because Owen was about to turn into its snack. She certainly did not expect _that_ as his way of thanking her. Claire tried to convince herself that it was done in the spur of the moment, and not because he was scared he would never have the chance again because they could die any moment.

The T-Rex was a risk. A calculated risk, but a risk nonetheless. She had seen enough of Roberta through the endless monitors to know that she would take out the Indominous Rex easily enough. She did survive for twenty two years after the collapse of Jurassic Park, and the Tyrannosaurus Rex was still in good condition when they found her.

(No words could describe her relief when her risk was calculated accurately, and that Lowery was still in the control station.)

What happened next was a blur, as compared to the hell they had just went through. Claire managed to let Zach and Gray go, so that they could reunite with their parents. She figured Karen would not let them know about the divorce until much later.

When she asked Owen what they were supposed to do, she expected something along the lines of "partake in the trials and investigation" and "try not to get in jail", definitely not "stay together, for survival".

Claire certainly did not know what he meant, but she did know she was not going to stay alone in the hotel that Masrani Global had chucked their employees into once they reached the United States.

After Simon's death, she was the only person left to deal with the trials. Apparently, dealing with legal crap (Owen's words) was part of her job description. There were many inquiries, many "Why did you authorize the creation of a hybrid when you know that your trainers potentially could not control it?".

She did laugh when her lawyers told her they were going to paint her as a hero. ("Without her quick thinking during the incident, many more would have died.") Some of the media happened to think so, too. ("Her ability to make decisions- life saving decisions- during such a tragedy is admirable.") Others, however, thought otherwise.

Owen had punched one of the journalists who had managed to follow them to the hotel after he asked, "How do feel about being the one responsible for all the trauma you've put the park visitors through, Miss Dearing?"

When washing his wound (he had managed to cut his hand on the journalist's spectacles), Claire had asked a simple "Why?" He might have shrugged, but they both knew it was because the two of them would never fail to wake up to the shaking of the bed they now shared. She did not remember when the nightmares started. One moment she was sleeping peacefully, curled up beside Owen, and the next she was sitting up right, panting, and drenched in sweat.

Owen's were more subdued; he would twitch and whimper, but would do nothing as drastic as she would.

(The next morning they would both pretend nothing had happened.)

It took a year for Claire to stop having to go to the court. It took another three months to fall back into normalcy.

She had found a job as a business analyst in a small company. The job was on a much smaller scale than what she was used to, but Claire was just glad someone was willing to hire her. This by no means meant that her job was simpler. Most of the time she would find herself being the last one to leave the office, buried in the endless stacks of documents.

Owen got a gig as a guide dog trainer. Regular hours were apparently part of _his_ job description, and not _hers_. In six months, she had missed a whopping seventy two dates. He kept on giving in.

(He gave until he had nothing left to give, and she took more than she could handle.)

Claire insisted her job was requiring a lot of attention; Owen believed she was retreating into herself.

(She was scared, and he was nervous.)

After they had settled down in her New York apartment, she thought it was only a matter of time before he left. Relationships that had its roots in a disaster simply did not last. It was not that she did not believe in _them_ , but rather it was she did not believe in _her_.

The day Owen left, they had an argument about moving. He had been trying to convince her to build a house somewhere with him. She had rejected time and time again because a: that was not practical, and b: she thought he would leave once he got tired of her.

He shouted at her for being selfish, for turning into a stranger, for shutting him out; she screamed at him for pushing too hard, for not understanding, for being distant.

Claire saw it coming, was expecting it, even. Their first date was a disaster, their first kiss happened after a near death encounter, did she need to list any other indications? The pain that followed still caught her off guard.

After she had thrown a sarcastic statement at him ("Sure, Owen, go ahead and build a house in the middle of nowhere."), he had disappeared into their room. He emerged a short five minutes (that felt like a lifetime) later, duffle slung over his shoulder. Owen took one last look at her, as if he was expecting her to stop him, but she did not. She _could not_ , not when fury was clouding her judgment. The door had slammed shut, and Claire stood rooted for a few moments.

She reached the window across the room just in time to see Owen speed off on his motorcycle.

Once it was out of sight, her legs finally gave way and she sank to the ground, tears streaming down her face. She woke up in a heap on the ground the next morning. Claire ignored the way her heart sank when she realized Owen took _everything_ of his. She went to work convinced that she would return to an apartment with him in it.

She did not.

The apartment was still empty when she returned. For once, she had made an effort to leave the office on time, but it was too late. It took her a week to accept that he was not coming back (because she screwed up). When the lease on the apartment ended a few days later, Claire did not bother to renew it.

(She would find out much later that Owen had come back to her, only to find a 'vacant' sign hanging on the door.)

Instead, she moved to San Francisco. She had found the perfect office for what she had been planning for a month: the Dinosaur Protection Group. Once she got it started, there was really no time to think about what she had left behind.

(When a day got really bad, Claire would dig out the red and black flannel that once belonged to Owen from the bottom of her wardrobe. It was the only piece of him she had left.)

She thought creating the dinosaurs were bad. As it turned out, there were people worse. She literally lived in a society where there were activists for the rights of all sorts of living creatures. _Except_ for dinosaurs, apparently. The DPG was the only group of its kind, and it sickened Claire.

("These dinosaurs are dying, and nobody cares.")

There were good people in the DPG. Franklin could be slightly too timid, but he was brilliant at all the tech work, a natural really. Zia was their in-house dinosaur biology expert, and Claire always wondered how that woman kept all those knowledge in her head. Rocco was their fundraising coordinator, and with his smooth tounge and charisma, he never failed to get them the monetary support they needed. Cybil, their campaign manager, had such creative and wonderful ideas that always managed to amaze Claire. There were many more, but it was not enough to save the dinosaurs.

When Benjamin Lockwood informed her of his plans, she thought she could fly. She crashed immediately (internally, at least), when Eli Mills all but told her she had to recruit Owen if they wanted to save Blue.

She was actually quite surprised when she saw Owen. She remembered the location from back when he was still trying to convince her, but she did not actually expect him to be there. Claire had thought he would have chosen somewhere else, but she guessed he probably did not expect her to have paid attention to him.

She had laughed so hard in the bar to cover up the pain that had came back immediately. When he rejected her, even when she played her trump card (read: Blue), she could not say she did not expect it. She had hoped he would not have changed, but it was a rescue operation, _with her_. Apparently he was willing to sacrifice Blue to distant himself from her, or so she thought.

(Claire would never admit that her heart all but _soared_ when she was _so sure_ he was finally going to say those three stupid words. He had to choose not to.)

The whole thing was even worse than the park incident. They were lied to and, made use of, amongst other things. It was a miracle they survived. Claire had never felt such despair since Owen left when she watched the Apatosaurus collapse when it could not escape the island before the eruption.

But she had to focus on the task at hand. Which she thought only included getting to the bottom of everything, and finding a way to save the dinosaurs that survived, but it also _happened_ to include taking a bag of blood from Roberta.

Claire would have killed Mills if it was not for the amount of blood that was already on her hands. She could have let Owen do the job, but the last thing she needed was for them to take him away. She definitely was not going to be alone in dungeon filled with dinosaurs, not when Owen was a _dinosaur_ trainer.

Maisie was a wild card. Definitely not in the equation, but that did not mean Claire did not want her with them. Obviously, if she could, she would send the girl to somewhere safer. Clearly, sending her to safety was not a viable option here. She was a clone, for goodness sake. Where _would_ she be safe?

The game of hide and seek they played with the Indoraptor brought back too many memories of its parent. Why on earth did they think it was a good idea to showcase it in an _auction_ was beyond Claire.

The relief she felt when Maisie ran off, however, was cut short as a searing pain shot up through her thigh. Her focus was still on the girl, now alone in the mansion, absolutely defenceless against the hell of a creature. Maisie knew the place well, but the Indoraptor was smart. Too smart for a monster created in a laboratory.

The kiss was unexpected, to say the least. Was she in pain? Yes. But Owen needed to find Maisie. He refused. ("I can't leave you here alone.") Without thinking, she pulled him in for a deep kiss. He still felt the same, tasted the same, reacted the same. ("Go.") Claire tried to convince herself that it was done in the spur of the moment, and not because she was scared she would never have the chance again because they could die any moment.

It took her ten minutes to finally be able to stand without crashing back down. Slowly and steadily, she made her way up the stairs, one step by one. She found one of those guns used at the auction. It probably weighed more than she should handle with such an injury, but she took it nonetheless. The only open door led to what appeared Maisie's room. That looked like it had been trashed.

Claire nearly dropped the gun as she realized _nobody was in there_. She hoped against hope that the Indoraptor had not ended Owen and Maisie. The pond window probably meant nothing to the regular person, but to someone who had all but lost hope? It meant everything.

If it was not for her focus on getting to the two of them, Claire was positive she would have slipped off the ledge and fall to her impending death. Without the injury, without the rush of adrenaline, without the sense of purpose, without all these distractions, she would definitely not be able to accomplish such a feat, no matter how competent she was.

The attack was a risk. A calculated risk, but a risk nonetheless. She had seen enough during the auction to know that it could possibly work, but should it fail, she would be the one who killed Owen. It worked.

When they found Zia and Franklin, she felt a selfish sort of relief, for no more blood had to be added to her hands. But the hydrogen cyanide did it all the same. There was no hesitation when she opened the cells, releasing what was left of the park. And yet, in spite the guilt that she already felt, Claire could not bring herself to open that last door. If she opened it, she would be putting the lives of many more at risk. The equation simply were not in the dinosaurs' favour; she could not justify risking what could possibly be the whole world got the remaining dinosaurs. No matter how much wrong she had done.

(Without even having to listen to her explanation, she understood why Maisie did what she did.)

There was no hesitation when they tooked Maisie with them. Not just because Lockwood had been murdered, but also because they were, as Mills so aptly put it, 'parents of the new world'. They could start with Maisie. At least, she was someone they cared about.

No words passed between them as Owen led them to his car. Saying goodbye to Franklin and Zia was painful, but it was only temporary. Now that the dinosaurs were in the wild, they need the DPG more than ever. The sight of the Pteranodons flying into the sunset was something she could get used to.

She might not be able to control the actions of others, but Claire certainly could do what she pleased to rectify the mistakes of others. Why?

You are not in control here.


End file.
